I think in the world of digital marketing, it is easy to assume that everyone knows everything about everything! But very often you just want to ask the simple questions – if you feel like this about display advertising, this one is for you. It doesn’t include the complexities, just the basics: hope you enjoy!

What is Display Advertising?

Display advertising is a way to get some representation for your campaign onto a targeted website. There are a number of options in terms of the advert size, location and format. There is also a wide variety of websites where your advert can be displayed. Different types of adverts include MPU (300 pixels x 250 pixels), Leaderboard (728 x 90) and Skyscraper (160 x 600)

There are two ways to place a display advert:

Google Display Network – this is a network of millions of websites who sell their space via Google. The Google Display Network is accessed via Google Adwords and you are able to use keywords to target the websites where your advert will appear. You can also target specific websites which are part of the network.

Direct with website – many websites sell space on their website directly. You can contact these websites and negotiate directly with them.

You can use a non-moving image which will normally be in a ‘png’ or ‘jpeg’ format, or a moving image such as a ‘gif’ format. This will depend on your budget, designer and website (not all websites can accommodate gif images).

Display advertising is good for:

Raising awareness

Using eye-catching imagery for your campaign

Using well targeted websites to promote your campaign

Display advertising is bad for:

Driving a response from an audience – display adverts have a low click through rate